It's not rational at all. It shows a complete distrust for the employee.

National security is different because the rules are imposed from the outside. These are self imposed rules.

Also most defense contractor employees don't work that much overtime and many can take the non-classified parts of their work home.

Let me get this straight... you turned down a nearly seven-figure income because you would be required to not work at home and you were asked to stick to the same office hours as cubible farm workers making a tenth of that income?

Umm... wat!?

Income has logarithmic value. His options were to make 350k and be happy day to day or make twice that and be in an activity hostile environment. Lifestyle wise there is little meaningful difference between 350k and 700k when you don’t have much free time to spend it.

Sure in theory he would be able to retire sooner etc, but retirement isn’t such a big deal if you don’t hate your job. Also, savings compounds so saving 3x as much doesn’t mean working 1/3 as long especially when you consider social security benefits etc.

I think you misunderstood. The job pressures you into overtime.

And what have you done to earn their trust that it should bother you so much?

It's ok that you feel bitter about missing out on that comp because you're not type-A enough, no need to cover it up with these wishy-washy non-complaints.

This isn't true by the way. A lot of defense contractors employ WFH or full remote procedures because 99% of your work will be on things that are unclassified. Most modern development practices separate out the classified material from the actual day to day work because not only is it better for security but also because forcing everyone into a SCIF wastes a lot of time and money.

Hello!

I work on a software used (not exclusively) by the USA armed forces.

I work from home for the most part. I can do that while travelling as well but I have some limitations on which countries I can do that from. But I'm not sure of the entire list.

Not true, I personally know many defense contractors who effectively have no offices and work out of their homes or vehicle.